


122. binary

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [300]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 05:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10734657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “I love you,” Helena whispers against Sarah’s shoulder.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: reference to abuse]

“I love you,” Helena whispers against Sarah’s shoulder, down in the belly of the ship. She moves her eyes, quick, to see if Sarah has moved – but she hasn’t. She stays limp in Helena’s arms. She doesn’t say anything, so. Maybe Helena didn’t say it out loud—

Sarah’s arms wrap around her, slow and fearful and still holding the gun. But they’re there. Sarah is shuddering against Helena’s shoulder, her breathing rocking harder than Helena’s own. But she’s holding Helena back. She hasn’t said _I love you too_ , but she’s holding Helena back.

Helena doesn’t move an inch – if she doesn’t, this doesn’t have to stop. Like a game. Like with Tomas, when Tomas was mad: if she stays very still she’s invisible, and nothing bad can touch her. She doesn’t move. Sarah doesn’t move either. She’s the warmest thing Helena has ever held. She’s the only thing Helena has ever been held by. If Helena said _I love you_ again Sarah would think Helena was trying to get something out of it, but it would just be because she’s feeling it again too strong. Always too strong, but she feels it.

Sarah mutters something against Helena’s hoodie, and it’s over before Helena realizes it was _I love you too_. Her heart kicks fast, runs in Helena’s chest like an animal running. _I love you too_ , she said it, she means it, she loves Helena too, someone loves Helena and Helena loves them and too.

“Please don’t leave me,” Helena whispers, and Sarah makes a terrible choking sound and her arms get tighter.

“I won’t,” she whispers back. “I’m right here, I promise.”

“You promise.”

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “god help me.”

 _God_ , Helena thinks, but then the thought stops.

 _Tomas_ , Helena thinks, and that thought goes on. She should go. She should take Sarah and run away into the dark, before Tomas comes back with his fists and his locks and his words that always make too much sense. His razor blade fingers. His razor blade eyes.

But she can’t let go of Sarah, so she doesn’t move. This feels like something that could kill her. This feels like something that Helena would let kill her – it would be worth it, to have it. It would be such a nice way to die.

 

Sarah lets go.

 

She turns her back on Helena, but Helena can still see Sarah wiping tears away from her face. She knows what it means when your hands go to your face; she’s not stupid. She turns to the side of Sarah anyways. She pretends it doesn’t mean a thing.

“What do I do with you,” Sarah says helplessly. She still hasn’t turned back around.

“I’m sorry,” Helena says, because if she was good enough she would already know what could be done with her. If she was good enough there wouldn’t need to be anything Done With Her at all.

“No,” Sarah says, shoving her gun into her jacket pocket. “It’s not your fault.” She turns back around, like those words didn’t matter, and pushes past Helena on the way to the door. “We’ll figure it out.”

 _We_. Helena would do anything, if it was because she and Sarah were _we_.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“I love you,” Helena whispers against Sarah’s shoulder, and what the hell does Sarah do with that. Helena is clinging to her like a kid scared of drowning, and her silence is expectant, and Sarah doesn’t know what to fill it with – if she opens her mouth something stupid is going to come out, something real, so she doesn’t open her mouth. She does something else stupid and real instead: she hugs Helena back.

Helena goes very still. Her arms clench tight. She isn’t crying. Sarah’s eyes are blurring, but that doesn’t mean she’s crying. The way she and Helena fit together doesn’t have to mean anything if she doesn’t want it to; to cry about something that doesn’t mean anything would be stupid, the sort of thing only an idiot would do.

So, yeah. Maybe she’s crying.

It’s just. It’s just – Helena in the alley, Helena crawling out of that cage, Helena in Maggie’s apartment on her knees, god, Sarah has never been that person but she’s felt Helena inside her chest. Everything Helena does screams fear, and Sarah has felt that fear rattling the inside of her ribcage, so. Of course she let it out. When she got the keys to let it out, she let it out.

“I love you too,” she whispers, and as soon as it comes out she’s closed her mouth but it’s too late, it’s real. Fuck. It’s true. She is hugging Helena in the dark and it feels right – and it feels right because Sarah loves her too. Something aching in her chest wants Helena to be safe.

“Please don’t leave me,” Helena whispers, like she read Sarah’s mind and knows her cue. Sarah holds her tighter, can’t stop thinking about foster homes, can’t stop thinking about everyone who has ever left her behind.

“I won’t,” she whispers, urgent. “I’m right here, I promise.” It’s a stupid promise to make, she can’t make it, she’s making it. She wants it to mean something. If not for herself – if it’s too late for herself – than for Helena at least, god, please.

“You promise?” Helena says.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “god help me.” God help the both of them, if God can even see them down here. It would make more sense, wouldn’t it, if they were just lost. The two of them standing together, the two of them completely alone.

Sarah lets Helena go; she regrets it the second she does it, but that doesn’t matter. This moment isn’t infinite. She can’t let this moment be infinite. She turns her back to Helena and wipes at her eyes, fast, before Helena can see that she was crying. She can hear Helena shuffling her feet behind Sarah. If Sarah turned around right now, she’d see the way Helena is looking at her – but she already knows the way Helena is looking at her, it’s helpless.

“What do I do with you,” she whispers to the floor. She can’t take Helena to Leekie. She can’t take Helena home, but she can’t take her to Leekie, but she can’t leave her here. Impossible girl.

“I’m sorry,” Helena says.

“No,” Sarah says, frantic and itching and hating herself, “it’s not your fault.” It isn’t. It’s someone’s fault, but it isn’t Helena’s. Sarah hopes that it isn’t her own.

She shoves the gun into her pocket and shoves herself past Helena, pretends she can’t see the way Helena is staring at her. Sarah makes for the staircase, because this will all make enough sense when they have enough light to see each other by. It’ll have to.

“We’ll figure it out,” she says, and it’s only when she hears Helena’s footsteps behind her that she can believe it’s true.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
